http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/01Updated at 12:30 p.m. ET: The Navy SEALs that rescued the American and Danish hostages in Somalia on Tuesday were not the same individuals that killed Osama bin Laden, U.S. officials told NBC News, contradicting an earlier news service report.Published at 1:15 a.m. ET: In a daring nighttime raid Tuesday, U.S. Navy SEALs rescued two hostages, including one American, who were being held by kidnappers in Somalia, U.S. officials tell NBC News.
American Jessica Buchanan, 32, and a 60-year-old Dane, Poul Thisted, were working for a Danish relief organization in northern Somalia when they were kidnapped last October. U.S. officials described their kidnappers as heavily armed common criminals with no known ties to any organized militant group.

According to the U.S. officials, two teams of Navy SEALs landed by helicopter near the compound where the two hostages were being held.
As the SEALS approached the compound on foot gunfire broke out, the U.S. officials said, and several of the militants were reportedly killed. There is no word that any of the Americans were wounded.

The SEALs gathered up Buchanan and Thisted, loaded them onto the helicopters and flew them to safety at an undisclosed location. The two hostages were not injured during the rescue operation and are reported to be in relatively good condition.
The two had been working for the Danish Refugee Council on a demining project in northern Somalia. The humanitarian group has been providing relief to some 450,000 refugees in the Somalia-Kenya border region.
News reports at the time said the two were kidnapped Oct. 25 along with a Somali colleague when their three-car convoy was stopped on the way to an airport. A self-proclaimed Somali pirate said they had been kidnapped for ransom by pirates stymied by Western nations' efforts to stop the seizure of ships off the coast. The fate of the Somali colleague was unclear.Related: American kidnapped by gunmen in Somalia
The first indication of the rescue operation came Tuesday night in Washington from President Barack Obama himself.
As the president entered the House chambers to give his State of the Union Speech, he pointed to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta standing in the crowd and said, "Leon. Good job tonight. Good job tonight."
The president made no mention of the hostage rescue, but finished his speech with a reference to the killing of Osama bin Laden last May in a similar operation to the one conducted by Navy SEALs Tuesday night.Updated at 5:57 a.m. ET: In a statement sent to NBC News and other media, Obama says that he authorized the operation to rescue Buchanan.
"Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our Special Operations Forces, yesterday Jessica Buchanan was rescued and she is on her way home," he says. "As Commander-in-Chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts."

Obama, who spoke to Buchanan's father Tuesday night, says she was "selflessly serving her fellow human beings when she was taken hostage by criminals and pirates who showed no regard for her health and well-being."
He says he told her father that "all Americans have Jessica in our thoughts and prayers, and give thanks that she will soon be reunited with her family."
"The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice," Obama adds. "This is yet another message to the world that the United States of America will stand strongly against any threats to our people."Updated at 6:50 a.m. ET: A statement from U.S. Africa Command says U.S. forces had received "actionable intelligence" about Buchanan and Thisted and decided to take action.
"During the course of the operation, the rescue force patrolled to the location and confirmed the presence of Mrs. Buchanan and Mr. Thisted guarded by nine captors," the statement says. "All nine captors were killed during the assault."
General Carter F. Ham, of U.S. Africa Command, says in the statement that the raid, which took place near Gadaado, was "boldly conducted by some of our nation's most courageous, competent, and committed special operations forces."
"Thanks to them a fellow American and her Danish co-worker are safe and will soon be home with their families," he adds.Updated at 6:55 a.m. ET: A statement from Panetta says he is "grateful to report that there was no loss of life or injuries to our personnel."
He says the rescue -- "undertaken in a hostile environment" -- showed the "superb skills of courageous service members who risked their lives to save others."
"They are heroes and continue to inspire all of us by their bravery and service to our nation," he says.Updated at 10:35 a.m. ET: Pentagon officials told NBC News that they are characterizing the people who took Buchanan and Thisted hostage as "criminal suspects," rather than pirates. They said the U.S. military has no firm information about whether the captors were connected to pirates or an Islamic militant group like al-Shabaab.

CAIRO - A top US official's son who is working for a pro-democracy group in Egypt has been barred from leaving the country, part of an escalating crackdown on such groups by Egypt's military government that has further outraged the United States.

KANO, Nigeria — An official says gunmen have killed 15 people in a daylight attack near a northern Nigerian city where a radical Islamist sect last week killed 185 people.
Zamfara state spokesman Ibrahim Muhammad Birnin Magaji said Friday that the gunmen burned the bodies of their victims in a village in Katsina state on Thursday, about 120 miles (200 kilometers) from Nigeria’s largest northern city of Kano.
Birnin Magaji said the Muslim traders had been traveling from Zamfara state in a minibus to sell their goods in a market in Katsina state.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - The bodies of 17 men previously held by Syrian security forces have been found in the city of Hama, activists said on Saturday, victims of a deadly struggle between President Bashar al-Assad and those determined to topple him. Turkey was due to meet Gulf Arab states later in the day to reinforce support for an Arab call for Assad to quit. The Arab League and Western countries are pushing for a U.N. Security Council resolution on Syria, resisted by Assad's

January 30, 2012 Taliban, US Begin Talks in Qatar VOA News Afghan Taliban negotiators are meeting with US officials in Qatar for a series of discussions aimed at building trust between the two sides ahead of the upcoming peace talks.

Tribal sources: Possible US air raids on Al Qaeda bases in Yemen kill up to 12

ZINJIBAR, Yemen – Air raids struck an Al Qaeda meeting and control post in southern Yemen, killing up to 12 people including a long-hunted regional militant leader, tribal officials said Tuesday.The four raids overnight appeared to have been carried out by US planes, one tribal official said.Al Qaeda extremists have taken advantage of months of political turmoil in Yemen to overrun swathes of the country's south.The air strikes took place in the Loder and Al-Wadih areas of Abyan province, southeast of the capital Sanaa, one official said."We think they were carried out by American planes," another tribal official said, speaking on condition of anonymity

CAIRO - At least 73 people were killed in a brawl between rival groups of soccer fans after a match in the city of Port Said on Wednesday in the bloodiest episode of lawlessness since the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak one year ago.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - UN Security Council ambassadors on Thursday were considering a revised resolution aimed at stopping the bloodshed in Syria that removes an explicit reference to President Bashar Assad stepping aside.

Diplomats fail to reach agreement on UN resolution aimed at ending bloodshed in Syria — leaving discussions in limbo — as Russia has said it will reject anything that resembles a call for regime change.

CAIRO (Reuters) - Gunmen in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula kidnapped two American women on Friday in an apparent attempt to hold them for ransom, security sources said.
Security in the isolated desert region has deteriorated since the overthrow of President Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising last February. South Sinai's Red Sea coast is a major tourism hub for Egypt.
The two tourists were among a party of five travelling from Saint Catherine's monastery in central Sinai to the resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh when a vehicle carrying men armed with machineguns stopped their small bus, the sources said.
The gunmen first took all the tourists' money and valuables and then, as an apparent afterthought, grabbed the two women, forced them into their vehicle and fled into the mountains, the security officials said.
Two army and police search parties had gone into the area to try to track them down, the officials said.

BEIRUT -- Syrian activists say an evening assault by government forces in the central city of Homs has killed 200 people and wounded hundreds.
The offensive was reported in Homs, which has been one of the main flashpoints of opposition to the regime during the uprising that began nearly 11 months ago. The reports were centered in the Khaldiyeh neighborhood.
Two main opposition groups said 200 people were killed in the assault late Friday and early Saturday. The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the Local Coordination Committees cited witnesses on the ground.

One of Libya's many new militias has been accused of detaining and apparently torturing to death a former ambassador to France, the latest allegation of brutality to mar the victorious revolutionaries' reputation since the fall of Col Muammar Gaddafi.

Human Rights Watch said that Omar Brebesh, a career diplomat who was cultural attache and then ambassador to France between 2004 to 2008, was brought in for routine questioning in Tripoli over his work for the former regime.
His body turned up at a hospital in Zintan, the town two hours' drive to the south-west that was a hub of last year's revolution, beaten, bruised and with some of its toenails removed.

Officials say 44 foreign democracy and rights workers, including the son of Transportation Secretary LaHood and 18 other Americans, will face prosecution for allegedly banned activities, after December raids of more than a dozen groups, pictured left, by Egyptian security forces.

CANBERRA, Australia – Protesters attacked seven Syrian embassies around the world following reports of the bloodiest episode yet in Damascus' nearly yearlong crackdown on dissent. Mobs trashed diplomats' offices from London to Australia and set the embassy in Cairo on fire.Activists say Syrian forces killed more than 200 people in the city of Homs before dawn Saturday, pounding restive neighborhoods with mortars and artillery. The government denies the reports.Australian police said the mob smashed into the embassy in a diplomatic precinct of Canberra, the capital, on Saturday night, causing extensive damage to the ground floor of the two-story building.

BEIRUT -- The U.S. closed its Syrian embassy Monday and Britain recalled its ambassador to Damascus in a dramatic escalation of Western pressure on President Bashar Assad to give up power, just days after diplomatic efforts at the United Nations to end the crisis collapsed.The U.S. evacuated all its diplomats from the country as Syrian forces intensified a shelling assault on the restive city of Homs. The offensive began Saturday, the same day Syria's allies in Russia and China vetoed a Western- and Arab-backed resolution aimed at trying to end the brutal crackdown on dissent.

Jan. 12, 2011: The U.S. embassy building is seen in Damascus, Syria.

Feb. 6, 2012: This image from amateur video made available by Shaam News Network, purports to show an explosion in Damascus, Syria.

"We have been relentless in sending a message that it is time for Assad to go," President Barack Obama said during an interview with NBC. "This is not going to be a matter of if, it's going to be a matter of when."Also Monday, British Foreign Secretary William Hague told lawmakers that Britain is using multiple channels to express its "abhorrence" at the violent crackdown, and has summoned Syria's ambassador to the Foreign Office to convey that message.

By Oren Dorell, USA TODAY CAIRO - Members of Egypt's newly elected government refused to back off Monday from charges that 19 Americans and several other foreigners are aiding violent protests and will be tried.

By the CNN Wire Staff United Nations (CNN) -- The Syrian assault on the city of Homs is "a grim harbinger of worse to come" without united pressure on the government in Damascus, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Wednesday.